chinese lore
by audi
Summary: (Tets+Kei) Keisuke reflects his past and how the *Shijin Tenchi Sho* had changed his life and brought him the love he desired. (Kei POV)


Right… Another Tetsuya+Keisuke (Kei POV), again written on the premise that there was nothing between them before Fushigi Yûgi. This is not necessarily a sequel to my other work with this pairing, but I suppose it could be… Uh… Enjoy…  
  
audi  
thegoddess@goddess.com  
  
(By the way… 'Hong-Nan' is 'Konan' and 'Qu-Dong' is 'Kutou'… Just me using the proper names, na no da.)  
  
**Chinese Lore.**  
  
Our lives changed with the _Shijin Tenchi Sho_. I've yet to decide if it was for the better or the worse. Before the book, I was just an average guy with an average single-mum family. We had average friends and did average things. There was schoolwork and work-work and sometimes a family dinner. Why, then, did the book pick us out of all the Japanese families? Because Miaka wanted change. Because Miaka wasn't happy with her life as it was. Because Miaka yearned for more.   
  
Did anyone stop to ask if the book chose more than just a girl?  
  
Sure, Miaka was going through a lot with her high school bit; I went through it, too. Whatever else she was going through, Yui must have been feeling something similar. 'Else why would Suzaku and Seiryu have anything to do with them? Time goes differently in the book, who's to say that it wouldn't have stopped in order to wait for some miko to come and save Hong-Nan from Qu-Dong? Who's to say that time wouldn't have halted to wait for the miko? Who's to say there weren't any other factors in the decision?  
  
Whether or not there were, my life changed drastically. My mum works long hours to help provide for us. She wasn't around as much as any of us would have liked. I learned to cope, somehow, and became everything Miaka could want in an onii-chan. I gave so much to make sure she was alright. I may or may not have been right in the long run, but that wasn't what mattered to me then.  
  
I told Miaka to stay away from the book, that she'd get hurt by it. At that time I didn't realize the truth to my words. I didn't realize that Miaka _was_ right, and that Yui _had_, indeed, been _taken_ into the Qu-Dong of the _Shijin Tenchi Sho_. It was a shock, and why shouldn't it have been? Books don't _normally_ do that kind of thing! Not even Chinese books – I should know, I've read quite a few.  
  
She left me to read about how she was _almost_ killed by Nakago… how she was _almost_ slain by Tamahome… how she _nearly_ committed suicide… how she… God!! It's enough to drive a sane man mad! I was unable to help her for the first time in my life. Being five years older, I've always been with her before. How could I trust the seichi seishi to protect her?  
  
I might have truly gone mad if not for Tetsuya…   
  
I've known Tetsuya forever. Miaka had Yui as her best friend and I had Tetsuya. But he was so much more than that! He's everything I'm not, and always has been. He's cool and composed and knows what he wants out of life. He's _always_ been good at _everything_, ever since we were kids. Why he chose to befriend me back then, I still don't know. But there was no way I was going to reject his offered friendship.  
  
It all started as a hero worship… I admired everything about him. And then… I closeted my feelings, perhaps too well. I didn't want him to think less of me. For me, being with him was enough… All those magazines I read, it was all a cover-up. There was no way, in my mind, that he could be anything but heterosexual. After that age when of awkwardness boys hate girls and girls hate boys, he seemed to have a girlfriend most of the time. Often, he was one of them that caught his girlfriend-of-the-moment in the hall for a quick kiss in-between classes. _**Definitely**_ straight. There was no way in Hell that I could go to him and say 'Tetsuya, I love you'.   
  
So we were friends. Close friends, but friends none the less. And it truly was enough for me.   
  
So, when Miaka and Yui were in that book, he stayed with me the entire time. He helped to soften the blow of everything, to make it all easier on me. We did it together. During that time I found myself growing even fonder of him…   
  
_Maybe_ it was the relationships I saw forming on the pages along with the text, that made me do what I did. Not only my sister and Tamahome, but Tasuki and Chichiri as well. There were other instances… _Maybe_ it was Suzaku himself and the love that he represents. Or _maybe_ it was the book itself and whatever magick it posses. I haven't the foggiest which it was. And, honestly, I don't care. The whole ordeal changed us, as I've already said. It made us say and do things we otherwise wouldn't have.  
  
That's why I kissed him. That's why I confessed my feelings for him. That's why I broke away from the barriers I'd closeted myself in for so long and done what I'd wanted to do for the longest time.  
  
At first, I thought Suzaku must have been playing a cruel joke on us. Because, he kissed me back, and echoed my affections. And…   
  
And then I got the happily-ever-after I never thought was possible. All around me, people were happy. And I'd grown to despise that happiness born of love. I thought I'd never be able to feel that. But…   
  
When his lips pressed to mine, and his body pressed to mine, I knew I was in Heaven and I prayed that if it was some kind of dream, that I never be set free. If it was a dream, I wanted to dream on forever. As long as forever included Tetsuya…   
  



End file.
